


Masks and Moisturizers

by JennTheMastermind



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Clothes, M/M, Make-up, Shopping, make-over, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9231746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennTheMastermind/pseuds/JennTheMastermind
Summary: The Foxes are tired of seeing Neil in the same two outfits again, so Allison takes him shopping and gives him a good lecture on self-care. It doesn't always mean an extra mile during the morning jog. Sometimes it means nail polish and crop tops.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Basically Allison teaches Neil it's time to be a human being and take care of himself. It's super cute and I think I wrote this ages ago for someone as a prompt on tumblr. I can't for the life of me remember what user it was for, but here it is! Hope you like it :)

Neil didn’t understand why the team thought he needed more clothes. He’d just gotten some a few months ago. It would’ve made sense if he was running again—changing clothes to avoid detection was something he and his mother had done on more than one occasion—but Neil wasn’t. The Foxes saw to that. So why did he need new clothes?

“Because we’re all getting tired of looking at your raggedy ass in the same outfits again,” Allison answered, flipping through a wrack of flannels. “You may not have to look at yourself, but the rest of us do.”

Neil rolled his eyes and sighed. He wished he was anywhere but underneath the loudspeaker blasting obscure pop music. It sounded like it belonged on one of Nicky’s teenage musical shows. Neil’s mind itched. What was the show called? Glee. That was it. 

Neil leaned against the cold metal of the wrack and flicked one of the tags. The prices surprised him—and not because they were high. Neil assumed shopping with Allison meant the top end of the highest line because it usually did, but not this time. He wondered if she was looking for reasonable prices for his sake. The thought made the corner of his lip twitch. Neil rested his head in the crook of his elbow to hide his smile.

“Hey, lazy,” Allison said. She pulled a random flannel off its hanger and tossed it over his head. “I’m here to help, not do it for you. Start looking.”  
Neil sighed again, loudly and clearly, and drug the shirt off. He ran a hand through his hair to smooth the mess and started flipping through hangers. He made his disinterest obvious.

Neil’s hands stopped on a plaid flannel. He pulled on one of the sleeves, looking at the muted oranges, dull reds, faded greys, and warm yellows of the pattern. It reminded him of the Foxhole Court, cigarettes, and Andrew’s hair when the sun was setting on the top of Fox Tower.

He took it off the wrack and held it up to Allison. “I like this.”

Allison glanced up from where she stood looking through henleys two wracks away. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Then, she nodded. “Good. That’ll bring some color to your wardrobe. Andrew needs to stop dressing you in solid black.”

“I can dress myself, Allison,” Neil said. She raised a skeptical eyebrow and he shrugged. He set to looking for the proper flannel size, wondering why it was Allison he was with and not Andrew. It’s not that he minded; he was just more comfortable with him around.

“Too bad its only winter clothes out right now.” Allison stood by him and frowned as she surveyed the rest of the men’s section.

Her gaze was clinical and searching—something Neil recognized from the court. She had a mark she was looking for. Neil just couldn’t guess what it was. 

She waved it away as a lost cause and turned towards checkout. “We’ll just have to find it online, then. No store is going to have it now.”

“Have what?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

Neil hid his grimace as they got in line. He trusted his teammates. When it came to his wardrobe, he trusted them less so when they said things like that. Last time they’d said “you’ll see,” Neil ended up wearing a Halloween costume he’d wanted to set fire to—in or out of it, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Neil didn’t think Allison would do something like that, but he wasn’t going to ignore his apprehension.

He thought they’d be leaving back to campus after they’d purchased his things, but instead she pulled him along to a cosmetics store. Neil tried not to think of a hospital as he blinked at the bright lights and pristine, white tiled floors. 

The music here was louder with more bass, like something he’d hear at Eden’s Twilight. Neil followed Allison to an isle filled with different toned bottles of liquid. She’d done his make up enough times last January for Neil to recognize foundation, but he didn’t understand what they were doing there until Allison held a few colors up close to his skin tone. When she seemed to find the right one, she pressed it into his palm.

“Why?” Neil asked, turning over the cool glass bottle.

Allison rolled her eyes. “So you can wear it. Wear it when you look like a punching bag. Wear it when you’re sporting eyebags at finals that are heavier than my suitcase. Wear it   
when you want to feel pretty. I don’t care.”

Neil didn’t have time to argue before she was pressing more products into his hands. There was a compact of powder, a blending sponge, a box of something that’s label was in a language he didn’t know, mascara, and a bag of remover wipes.

With his hands full, Neil stopped her from adding something else. “Allison, what is this all for? Why are you giving me mascara—”

“You have great eyelashes.”

“Excuse me?”

Allison nodded like it was obvious. “You have great eyelashes. Mascara will make them look better and I’m not even going to tell you what it’ll do for your blue eyes.”

Neil felt his stomach bottom out. His battle with his reflection was one he was slowly starting to win, but he still thought of Nathan every time he saw his eyes. He still thought of his knives and the ax that could’ve ended Exy for him—ended his life. Neil still had more bad thoughts than good, to say the least.

“Listen,” Allison began quietly, “they aren’t his eyes anymore. They’re yours. Own them and slay any bitch who says differently, got me?”

His ears buzzed faintly. Neil thought maybe he gave a slight nod because Allison nodded back. 

There was a whisper of excited voices behind him and Neil turned. At the end of the isle and over the sound of the pounding music were a group of girls staring at him and Allison. They didn’t approach, but they kept glancing at them from their phones and each other.

“Besides,” Allison shrugged, dragging her eyes from the girls to Neil with a grin growing on her face “it’ll leave swooning ladies everywhere weeping at their loss and drive the monster crazy.”

Neil didn’t care about the girls, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he juggled the product in his hands until he found the box with foreign writing. “Okay, then, what the hell is this?”

“Moisturizer.”

Neil shook his head. He wasn’t even going to bother asking why he needed that this time.

Allison rolled her eyes like she felt she was talking to a brick wall. “For your face, dumbass. You have a nice complexion, but you run for hours outside in the freezing cold with nothing covering your face. Unless you want to look like a raisin when you’re older, use the moisturizer. Use it once a night. I’ll know if you don’t. Protect your skin.”

He opened his mouth to protest but closed it just as quickly. Allison ducked into the other isle on a sudden thought. He sighed and when she came back, she added SPF 75 sunscreen to the growing pile in his hands.

She grinned and considered him. Neil didn’t like that look. She was probably thinking of something scheming. “Red hair, blue eyes—I bet your skin burns like hell without sunscreen. Lobster-Red-Neil is probably something I could earn manicure money on, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make to never have to look at Raisin-Neil. Protect your skin.   
I mean it.”

“I’m fine—”

“Do what I say or I’m going to ask that lovely employee over there to give you a makeover right here, right now.”

Neil didn’t want all the products she’d shoved on him, but he wanted that even less. “Fine.”

***

Allison had dragged Neil straight into the girl’s room when they’d made it back to Fox Tower. After that, she made him put on sweatpants and a comfy sweater and pulled him into the bathroom. 

There were two mugs of green tea steaming on the counter as she pulled her hair into a messy bun and away from her face. She stepped back and looked down at his sweats quizzically. 

“You realize your team sweats say ‘Minyard 03,’ right?”

Neil glanced down. He hadn’t had much time to change, so he hadn’t paid attention to whose clothes he’d grabbed. He looked up and shook his head, “So, what?”

“We should spend time together more often,” she said, marveling. “I learn so much and make so much money on those bets.”

“You have a bet on whether or not I wear Andrew’s clothes?”

“Oh, no. We all know you wear his clothes. We have a bet on whether or not Andrew’s pants are too short for you.”

Neil couldn’t help glancing down again. “They’re fine.”

“Exactly. That’s what I said. Matt, the tall mancandy he is, thought they wouldn’t be. He owes me fifty.”

Allison turned toward the mirror to make sure her hair was secure before she shoved yet another jar of something into Neil’s hands. He turned it over and studied the light green paste inside. He looked at the label and read “Cucumber Mask.”

Neil flicked his eyes up at Allison.

She adjusted a headband to tuck away stray blonde hairs and handed one to him, too. “What?”

He held up the jar. “Is this necessary?”

“Honestly, Josten, stop questioning me. Masks are nice and they make your skin feel great. You’ll thank me later.”

Neil put the jar down on the counter carefully. “Allison, what’s all this about?”

She took a step back from the mirror and Neil met her steady eyes. He’d be lying if he said their day hadn’t been nice, but it was completely unnecessary. The clothes, the makeup, the product: he didn’t need any of it.

Neil had long ago learned he shouldn’t question Allison, yet he’d been doing it all day. She was smart—attentive. She saw more than she let on and understood better than some.   
She was blunt and rude, but only because her confidence was so strong. Neil trusted her; he just didn’t understand.

Allison put a hand on her hip and leaned against the sink. Her voice was hard, but her words were not. “You’re too rough on yourself, Neil; you punish yourself for every missed step, pass, and shot and you’re wearing yourself down. You try to hide it, but I still don’t think you understand we’re with you all the time. We see everything.

“It’s time you learn to cut the shit,” Allison said. Neil couldn’t have said anything even if she gave him time. “Someone needs to teach you how. Replace that bad habit of   
criticizing yourself more than Kevin criticizes the entirety of the Exy athlete population with some self-care. You might be surprised how much better you feel when you wake up every day.”

Neil swallowed hard and turned the headband over in his hands. He glanced up from the pink elastic. “Self-care?”

Allison hummed. “You’re a Fox now. You have been for awhile. That means you don’t need to worry about looking over your shoulder every time you walk into a room—about knowing all the exits. We’ve got you, but that means you need to learn the little bits of everyday self-care.”

“Like moisturizer?”

“See? You’re not as dumb as you look.”

Neil gave her a wry smile. Allison picked up the cucumber mask and demonstrated for him how to use it. It smelled nice and obscured the scars on his face. Neil tried not to tarry over the mirror too long, instead deciding to take a mug of tea and sit on the bathroom rug with Allison. 

She was explaining to him how to use the blending sponge for foundation when she suddenly left the room, chasing another thought like she had with the sunscreen. Neil sighed and leaned back against the sink cabinet. He breathed in the steam from his tea and squished the sponge between his fingers.

Allison came back with her laptop and sat. She leaned against the side of the tub, propped the laptop on her knees, and set to searching something without a word. She wiggled her silver painted toes into the rug’s fluff as she typed away.

After a few moments of silence, Neil asked, “What are you doing?” 

He couldn’t see anything passed the pastel pink skin on her laptop except her squinted, focused gaze roaming the screen. The computer lit up the green mask on her face and made it shine.

“Shopping,” she said, tilting her head in consideration before scrolling down her touchpad.

Neil raised an eyebrow, but the mask pulled his skin and made it stiff. It was a strangely pleasant feeling. He scrunched his nose to feel it again and had to stop himself from   
making weird faces. He set his tea aside and started looking through the many colors of nail polish Allison had sitting in a bag beside his new products.

There were so many different shaped bottles and shades of polish; he felt he could’ve looked for hours. At least, until Allison said, “Pick one.”

Neil looked up and she repeated with a sigh. “Pick a color.”

“I get the self-care lecture,” Neil said, “but this seems so impractical. All the skin products make sense. Even the clothes kind of make sense. Nail polish doesn’t.” 

“Nail polish is fun.”

“Exy is fun.”

“So is nail polish.” Allison shrugged, closing her laptop and setting it aside to sit cross legged. “There’s more than one type of fun, Josten. Just pick a color. If you don’t like it, we can take it off.”

Neil glanced from her to the large bag of colors. She made it sound so simple. He didn’t know how to choose.

Then, he thought of the game coming up next week. Palmetto always had spirit days to get the student body excited. Most of the time, it involved wearing school colors.

“Just one?”

“No.”

Neil rummaged through the bottles until he found the two he was looking for. He held up a white polish and a PSU orange.

“Oh, Neil.” Allison sighed and shook her head but took the polish from him. “You’re so predictable.”

He waited a beat before asking, “Can we do a fox paw pattern, too?”

Allison cocked an eyebrow and gave an approving hum. He crossed his legs and sat opposite her. The cucumber mask pulled at his low smile.

***

A few days later, Neil rested his head on his arms as he sank down at his desk. His math problems were putting him to sleep and his new muted yellow flannel smelled faintly of his and Andrew’s cigarettes. The shirt was so comfortable; he wore it as often as he could. Neil didn’t mind the smell at all.

A knock on their suite door had Neil out of his chair before Andrew could put down his book. He stayed on the couch as Neil let Allison in. She shook a plastic-wrapped, shipping package as he closed the door.

“This is yours,” she said, pressing it against his chest. He grabbed it before she let go and watched as Allison took notice. “You’re wearing the makeup.”

“How could you tell?” He asked, turning the package over in hands with painted nails. He was glad to hear her tone was so normal. He’d felt strange putting makeup on that morning, but he liked how it took attention away from his scars. 

“Please, Josten. Don’t waste my time asking stupid questions. Open the package.”

“If you spoil him any further we might have a problem,” Andrew said from the couch.

Allison waved his comment away. “I’ve heard enough stories from Nicky and too many scarred looks from Kevin that tell me you like the spoiling and that it will never be a problem. Open the package.”

Neil rolled his eyes and did as she said. Inside the shipping plastic was a shirt. It was white and abnormally short. Across the front in orange lettering it said “(S)exy.”

Neil let the crop top drop in his hands as he looked at Allison. There was a sly grin pulling at her mouth.

“Shopping,” Neil said, repeating her from the bathroom.

“I told you we’d have to find it online.”

Andrew stood up and made his way towards Neil. He took the shirt from his hands and held it up, blocking Allison’s face. His face remained stoic as he took in its short length, yet Neil thought he saw something in his eyes. It was the briefest of flashes, but it was there.

Andrew looked from the crop top to Neil, not bothering with subtlety as his gaze fell from his chest to his abs before going to the shirt again. With a contemplative hum, he tossed the shirt over Neil’s shoulder and left the room.

“If you two ever get married,” Allison said quietly, “let me know when your bachelor party is. I mean, it’s not quite a bachelorette party, but I think the same rule applies when it comes to gifts.”

Neil blinked at her. “You’re as bad as Nicky.”

“Nicky wishes he could be on my level.” Allison nudged his shoulder with hers and let herself out.

Neil turned toward where Andrew had disappeared. He was sure he was supposed to follow after that hum. It couldn’t have been anything other than approval, but Neil was hesitant over the shirt. 

Andrew and Abby were the only people who’d seen his scars. He wasn’t ready for the world to see them yet. Except, as he turned the top’s fabric over in his hands, he thought it might be soft and comfortable enough to wear around the dorm. 

When he finally followed Andrew, Neil thought he’d have to thank Allison the next time he saw her.


End file.
